Imprisoned Hearts
by Shalyn H
Summary: A story told by two reploids, Prism and Blitz, about their struggle to find themselves in the midst of war with a new breed of Mavericks. On a newly colonized planet where magic and machinery collide, anything can happen. Undergoing revision!
1. Falling Away

-DISCLAIMER-

- DISCLAIMER -

The Megaman series and all respective Megaman characters are copyright Capcom. All original characters are copyrighted by their creators, blah blah blah...whatever...onto the story!

-/ Blitz /-

Space; what an unusual place it was. It was a long wait up here in the middle of darkness that sees little light, the stars in the distance, so many unexplored areas. They were not my destination. I continued to watch the exterior through one of the portholes in our shuttle. Every other passenger on the ship was under stasis, sleeping as the shuttle slowly directed itself towards the other planet with a Hunter base on it. I didn't sleep, no, I didn't want to sleep. I specifically altered my pod before departure to deactivate the stasis field an hour after takeoff. It was an easy fix, and I did the job quick and fast to avoid detection. Ah, the glories of carrying a personal tool kit under your armor.

The planet was in close view now, after almost a month of travel on this ship. I stood by this window, watching, counting the seconds…counting the minutes…counting the hours…counting the days…finally to reach this planet. My mind slowly drifted to the days on Earth...

My fist clutched into a ball by instinct, and I forced my eyes shut, instinctively chasing those memories away. Slowly, my fist uncurled, and my eyes slowly opened. A soft warning klaxon was going off above me, indicating to the descent to the planet. When the klaxon went off, the re-animation sequence for the other Hunters began.

Reinforcements had finally arrived on the colonized planet…the name slipped my mind, but I didn't care; nothing mattered now. Hopefully, this was just a way to end everything.

-/ Prism /-

I can still remember to this day, the way everything sounded and felt as I awoke from a seeming eternal slumber. My mind and body felt numb, as if I was merely a soul existing within a body that was not my own, that was not controlled by me. I felt some kind of life coursing through my strange body, and I had stretched my fingers and hands, extending my limbs one by one in a fascinated, curious manner. I couldn't remember at the time what had happened before I had gotten that way, before I was a reploid. What had happened before my body was made metal is another story.

Having the ability to feel emotion was one of the greatest gifts and curses of being a reploid. Long ago, when Dr. Light created the reploid we now know as X, he created him with the ability to feel emotion. It was a tremendous leap in technology and many people looked down on him as an example of human arrogance. Who was he to play God? Who was he to give life and feeling to a complex robotic creature the ability to think and feel like a human? What dangers could that bring the human race? Dr. Light could not have known back then. No, there was no possible way he could suspect that his creation would give birth to the monsters we know as Mavericks. Those bloodthirsty fiends whose primary purpose is to wipe out the inferior race, the weaklings…the humans…they were created of the very same materials and blueprints as X, the champion of reploid design.

Existing with human emotion inside of a robotic shell was not always one of my favorite things to do. I would occasionally find myself hoping for a release from life to ease the pain of having no memory of who I was or what my objective in life was. Ever since the day I had awakened to my 'second life', from human to reploid, somehow things would never be the same for me. Suddenly I had gone from this weak little irresponsible human to a Maverick Hunter with the burden of defending the entire planet. And now, I thought, gazing out of my room in the secondary Maverick Hunter Base; a new planet was my responsibility to protect. All of these thoughts passed through my mind as I continued to sink into my own deep state of thought. I felt out of place at this base most of the time, because most of my comrades were left behind at the Earth base. It was not my own decision to go to the other planet, but I did not protest after I had learned of the "special" capabilities of the inhabitants. As much as I missed my friends, I wanted to learn more about the so-called "magic" force that existed on the newly colonized planet.

Somehow I knew that the ability to use magic would play a part in my future. The knowledge that I was a reploid and I myself would never be able to use magic was a painful little piece of information that took a while to face up to. I never really could know how greatly magic would affect me though, not until I actually came face-to-face with it. But I tried not to think of my future too much, because a wise friend of mine from the Earth base had once told me that a Hunter who contemplates on their future might find the results a bit glum in the end. Many Hunters die in the battlefield, and the thought that at any time I could die fighting wasn't too bright a thought, but the thought of actually proving myself loyal to the humans I had once existed among made it seem all the more worthwhile.

Protected by the natural defenses of my machine body, I felt strong, and likewise defensive of the feeble masses of humans that were attacked constantly by the ruthless Mavericks, and though humans didn't always make wise decisions, they lived by trial and error just as any living creature does. Humans aren't particularly intelligent as a whole, but as individuals, they can be bright and incredibly resourceful. They are, after all, the reason why I'm still alive, more or less. It was human intelligence that brought about the reploid race, as well as many of the newer robots that make the humans' daily lives easier. Most of the time, the negative and positive outcomes controlled by the human species are merely products of instinct. Now that I think of it, the phrase "the mind is a terrible thing to waste" rings very true.

I continued to stare dully out my window, watching the clouds in the alien sky drift by in lazy billowy formations, the light of the sun filtering through them and lighting the world below. I wondered if I would ever see any of those friends of mine again, and if my new location was going to decide my fate. A few birds soared and spun through the sky, forming lines and arrow-shapes, some just floating about on the breezes by themselves. The leaves on the trees swayed with the cool breeze, and the tall blades of grass that protruded from the ground flopped from side to side.

This planet wasn't very unlike Earth; it just had a feeling to it that was much different. It was something akin to growing up in on house your whole life, and then relocating to a new one in a different neighborhood. Instead of operating off of electricity like a lot of planets did, humans turned to magic for a great portion of operations. Reploids, of course, functioned the same way and went mostly unaffected by the change. While at the new Hunter base, I remembered hearing a rumor that magic-based cores were in development for use in simple robots. Little nodes would act as a replacement for the advanced lithium-ion batteries that most of the robots functioned off of. The nodes could draw magic from the atmosphere and power the robots the same way that electricity powered them from the charge in the lithium-ion batteries.

Magic was the replacement for other general uses, too. People used it to power their home devices and vehicles, both ground and aerial alike. It was one of the few economically safe transitions the humans had undergone in quite a while, though I wondered if the magic supply was as limited as the supply of electricity. Intense studies were still underway as the planet's population increased. There hadn't been any trouble with things suddenly running out of power so far, so it seemed like things were on the right track. As of yet, there was no way to regulate the amount of magic in the atmosphere or channel it into storages for companies to sell. There was no such thing as a magic energy bill, and that was good, since electricity was getting really pricey for the general populace. The new energy source brought a lot of settlers to the new colonies and well-populated the planet in a short time.

Something about this new planet's vibe affected me greatly. I couldn't help but feel a little abysmal about my new surroundings. I kept feeling like something was going to happen; some cataclysmic event that would change everything I had known. Perhaps it was something about the constant energy in the atmosphere, or maybe was my own dark thoughts that had stirred me into feeling that way. Maybe I was just imagining things…or maybe not.

By coming to this base, a part of me hoped that maybe I might find myself here. Some small voice existing in the depths of my tainted soul wondered if maybe, just maybe, I might find out a little about myself. I had no recollection of my past life, let alone what planet I had lived on, where I had come from, and what I had done that had gotten me nearly killed, so that they had to perform the operation that would transition a majority of my human parts to machines and things that kept me synthetically alive. Perhaps I would find out who I truly had been before, and who my family was, if they were still alive. I felt feeble hope and grasped at it, listening to all those little nibbling voices that wondered if maybe I might find a few new friends among the Hunters here.

An even smaller part that I forced away and tried my hardest to deny began to plague me with questions. It wanted me to believe that maybe, amidst all the war and suffering that still went on, even here; among the responsibilities and hardships, that the smallest chance existed that I might find someone here who could love me. I began to embrace that thought, as it is every girl's dream, and it's hard to find someone who honestly loves something that cannot ascertain reciprocation of true emotion. I had been human at once, anyway, and I wondered if I might ever get those natural instincts back, or if I already had them and couldn't tell the difference between programmed responses and natural emotion.

Occasionally, I would feel a sharp stab of reality. I was not a human, and I shouldn't be feeling these things: hope, love, fear, depression. They were all programmed into me just as respiration, which acted as an exhaust expeller; circulation, which kept me operational as a machine; even walking and moving the joints in my fingers in response to my will. As I clutched my saber in my hand, I headed toward the combat simulation room to take out my frustrations. Perhaps coming here might bring sense into my mind and make me remember what I really was. And I thought, darkly...I'm not a human. I'm not a robot. I'm a hybrid; a sort of half-being.

I am a monster.

- / Blitz / -

I heard the landing gears slow coil out of the bottom of the ship. Gears were turning, electronics were buzzing, and the autopilot was proceeding with final steps of the landing. I tapped the right thigh of my amour, accessing a panel that opened up from it. A small case slid out. My hand felt around the interior of the plating, feeling for the mini-tools I always kept on my person. I proceeded to do that with the left thigh of the armor, making sure all was there.

My gaze fell towards the outside of the porthole once more. The sky was as blue as it was on Earth. Upon initial analysis, I noticed there doesn't seem to be much of a climate difference between here and Earth, save perhaps a few degrees of cooler air. The effects of the slow process of global warming were running a little more rampant on Earth these days.

The light over the exit hatch turned yellow. I knew it meant that we had successfully landed and that the other Hunters inside the vessel were to be reanimated shortly. The light on my capsule was green already, since I was already up and around. No one was awake to reprimand me for it anyway. Pistons moved as vents hissed out gas, signaling the beginning of the reanimation sequence for all of the other passengers. I glanced out the window once more, noticing the relatively well-developed Hunter Base. Though the base was still incomplete, the ship I was on also brought with us some of the resources needed for its construction.

There was a soft _ding_ from the rear hatch of the ship and the light above it turned green. With a whirr of gears, the top and bottom flaps of the steel door began to open, revealing the cool air of the planet we had just landed on. Technicians were waiting outside, ready to assist with the awakening of the other Hunters around. They were surprised to see me ready to go.

One of the technicians offered to run a status check on my body, and I shook my head. I made my way out between the open flaps of the hatch. It was clear that the technicians weren't expecting anyone to be wakened yet, but they made a space in their ranks for me to pass. Screw procedures. I could wake myself up if I needed to. Besides, I was already there. They could rebuke me later if they felt like it. I glanced back at the ship first, inspecting the dents in the armor plating that had been made from debris on the travel, though a majority of it had probably come from the descent. I breathed a sigh and made sure my storage compartments in my armor were secured, and then headed towards the base.

-/ Prism /-

The excitement of the day was beginning to distract my attention from the situation at hand. I'd gotten stuck with inventory again, and normally I would have completed my job without hesitation and brown-nosed to my superiors a little with my performance, but today was different. I'd heard that another ship of Hunters had landed at the base and that these Hunters would be adding to the force of our base and bringing supplies to help finish the base's construction. Apprehension began to eat a hole in my concentration, and as the hole grew bigger, I began to lose track of what I was doing. I had to keep recounting the boxes that I was stacking neatly along the walls and shelves.

The footsteps I heard coming toward the large storage room began to wake me up a bit, and I realized that I'd better get my ass in gear if I was to finish this job. A male figure appeared in the doorway, the dim fluorescent lights barely revealing his identity to me. I felt relief replace worry when I saw who it was that had come to check up on me. My squad leader stood in the doorway with his arms folded over his chest. Jet and I made friends of each other within a short time since I had arrived at the base only a month previous, and I knew that even though I was dropping the ball so to speak, he'd lecture me, but he wouldn't assign me to some other more torturously monotonous task as a punishment.

"Hi Jet," I greeted absently, approaching another group of boxes, making my best attempt at looking busy. I blinked in realization of what I was doing, and when I looked at the clipboard I held in my hands, I was a bit surprised to see that I had actually made some progress in the past few minutes. Perhaps it was a part of my programming to perform in spite of my dubiously wandering mind.

"Hey Prism," he responded, smiling at me a bit. He was quite an attractive young man, and I'd had a slight crush on him ever since I'd met him. He was intelligent and witty; your typical smart guy. It kind of annoyed me, because I could never act wise around him without him laughing at me and correcting something I had made a mistake on. In spite of annoying me to no end in general conversation, Jet was a good guy, and didn't leave much room for criticism. He was always optimistic and energetic, and watched out for me in such a way that nobody really noticed. Not even me, for the most part.

"How are things going around the base?" I asked, grunting as I picked up a box that would have been much too heavy for human arms and moved it up onto a stack of other boxes. For fifty percent packing material and the other fifty percent actual parts, these boxes were heavy. They were probably full of pre-made armor for the grunts.

"Pretty good. Seems you're having fun there. Who put you up to it this time?"

"Damn Electro," I muttered. "No matter how hard I try to please that guy into liking me, enough to at least put me out in the field once or twice, he's never satisfied. He's a chauvinistic bastard. He just gives me more work."

Jet laughed at me and I cast him an annoyed glare.

"You shouldn't talk bad about your superiors in front of your other superiors…and no offense, but I don't think you're prepared for combat just yet. Though I have to admit, that Electro guy doesn't know whether he's coming or going, and he can be a real jerk to the females." Jet ran a hand through his spiky brown hair. "Anyway, I'm sure you've heard about the new shipment of Hunters and crap that just came in. Why don't you go check it out?"

"Probably because I'm stuck screwing around with these damn boxes." I said it a bit stiffly because I was irritated by his remark on my combat readiness. He seemed not to notice, or care.

"Eh, go take a load off. I'll finish up for you. You don't look like you have that much left to do anyway, and besides, I'm sure no one will care WHO does it as long as it gets done." He smiled that smile at me that made it hard to think properly and I suddenly felt bad for being so brisk with him.

"Electro will care," I pointed out.

"Nonsense. I outrank him anyway. Now go, before I make it an official order," he finished, grinning at me. I couldn't argue too much there, since Jet did have authority over me. I sighed, and cast him a defeated smile in return.

"The chain of command is a beautiful thing. Thank you SO much, Jet," I said gratefully.

I could feel the excitement building up in me, and I began to daze like a dreamy schoolgirl. Jet regarded my expression and shook his head, snatching the clipboard from my grip.

"G'wan, have your fun," he said, shooing me out of the stock room.

"Thanks!"

I headed down the hall, anxious to meet the newcomers, and even more anxious to see if I could perhaps find a few of my friends among them. I was lucky to have Jet on this planet, but he was really the only one aside from my other superiors that I knew. The big cheeses, X and Zero, went back and forth constantly between the two bases, and occasionally they'd stop by the lobby to talk about some kind of exciting adventure they went on or a new kind of Maverick they had to fight. The Hunters always crowded around them and listened to their stories until the higher-ups crashed the party and chased them off with orders to return to their work. I'd sometimes duck around a corner or pretend to have some kind of important cleaning job to do in the lobby so I could stick around to listen to them. I felt like a little kid with the way I'd listen to their stories with rapt fascination. I guess by some standards I still was a kid, since at the time I had been made a reploid, I was about sixteen.

I was so buried in my own little world that I didn't notice where I was going, and as I rounded a corner, I collided with another Hunter and gasped in surprise, reeling back and stumbling.

"Oh! I'm sorry." I exclaimed, blinking in surprise at the boy in front of me. The sight of him caught me off guard. He looked far too young to be a Hunter, and he was wearing strange armor that looked like a custom job. He couldn't have been much over thirteen or fourteen, and he had the most shocking blue eyes I'd ever seen. He stared at me with a slightly confused expression that quickly changed to cold indifference, and I felt that I should pity him almost immediately. That look reminded me of...of someone...

"It's alright," he responded. He didn't really seem to give me much of a second thought, and he turned and continued on his own silent route. I idly wondered if he was one of the newcomers, and I sighed deeply, cursing myself again for my incompetence and horrible social skills. I decided to take a shot at making a friend.

"Hey, uh…my name is Prism," I called out to his turned back.

He barely spared me a glance, and said nothing as he went on his way. It was a look of slight disregard, as if I was just another one of those people that stared at him strangely and talked about him behind his back. I immediately felt horrible, and I wished to apologize to him, but somehow my body wasn't responding to my mind, and I couldn't move for a while. I watched him until he disappeared, and it crossed my mind that I knew who he had reminded me of.

That look of enclosure and suppression, of someone who holds their thoughts inside like a caged bird, of someone who's beyond caring and has their own small reasons for everything…

He reminded me of myself.

-/ Blitz /-

I continued to walk down the hallway, paying no heed to those that stepped in my path. That girl…she had apologized to me…I didn't need her sympathy.

The base wasn't very different from the one back on Earth. It must have been built with the same blueprints, though I found that the design was inefficient. The living quarters should have been closer to the exits while more important facilities should have been in the center so that there was more distance between them and any invaders. Evacuation made it hard for precious material to be moved out...then again, with a base, it should never need to be evacuated.

It's not like anyone would have listened to my suggestions anyway. I was just a boy far away from home, and without a care in the world. I opened one of the storage compartments in my armor, gripping a small vial of liquid in my hand. I held the vial carefully, as to make sure not to destroy it.

"The one cure," I whispered, watching the blue liquid slosh around inside. "It didn't work, and that's why she died…" I slipped the item back into my armor, making sure the compartment was secure. I glanced to my right and noticed a small storage room where a male Hunter was organizing materials. I paid no heed and continued on, my destination just a little further away. The lights in the room quickly brightened in response to my presence. The walls were black. This training room was to test one's ability against holographic opponents in simulated battle environments. The pain that was translated to our bodies, however, was real. It was important for the Hunters to get used to the concept of pain and to learn to defend themselves in real combat situations.

On Earth, I could never exceed the recommended safety limit, but out here, security sensors were a bit more lax due to the ongoing construction, and there was hardly any of it that I couldn't hack into. I stepped towards the control panel, cracking my knuckle joints in the process.

"Three opponents, maximum difficulty," I muttered, typing in the orders.

"Unable to confirm, exceeding normal safety levels," the computer's robotic female voice replied.

"Override," I whispered, typing some more. The red light turned green, indicating a successful order. I stepped into the middle, the three foes appearing in a triangle formation, with me in the middle.

Time to get started.

-/ Prism /-

I listened to the sound of wind trailing through the trees, my senses sharp and in tune to everything around me. I focused mostly on what I could hear around me, and I did this often, to train myself to better hear where others were in case I ever encountered a situation where I couldn't see someone I had to fight. I strained, reaching out further to hear every small sound. I could hear the sound of an insect scampering through the blades of green grass near my feet. I could hear the birds chirping in the trees, settling in for the night. I could hear the rustling of the bushes, and it was almost as if I could sense the very essence of nature around me. It was a feeling that was pleasant, though I knew that these moments wouldn't last too much longer because of how quickly shipments of material were being brought to the planet in preparation of the new town they were building not far from the base. Human colonies tended to collect near the Hunter bases where they relied on the reploid forces to keep them secure. In a few years' time, this planet would also be like Earth: polluted and plagued with machines and towns. Sometimes I felt like a Maverick, the way I loathed reploid and human existence. I liked animals and wildlife, but humanoids brought out an inner sickness within me.

I gathered a deep breath into my artificial respiration system, relaxing, feeling the clicking and turning of gears within my body, the way that the metallic parts worked in perfect unison to give me life. I despised this body more than anything in the world, and as I stared up at the setting sun through my cold verdant eyes, I felt a strange peace and center within me that only existed when I was on the verge of depression. I gathered my blond hair up into a handful at the base of my neck and braided it idly, tying off the end with an elastic band, then I sat on the grass and continued to watch the sunset in my own peaceful silence.

I sensed another presence, and when I turned, I saw Jet behind me, in the doorway of the base, watching me with quiet eyes. When I met his gaze, he smiled slightly, though the majority of the smile was a glint that played at his eyes. In a corner of my mind, a small part of me remembered the stunning blue eyes of the boy from earlier, for that was the most important part of his appearance I remembered. I found myself comparing, thinking that Jet's eyes were nowhere near as meaningful. That thought startled me.

"Having fun out here?" He said with gentle sarcasm.

"Not particularly," I responded. I sighed, drawing my knees up to my chest. He walked out and sat beside me, looking up at the setting sun as well. I could feel a small portion of nervousness beginning to creep up on me, but I forced it down by closing my eyes for a moment, then reopening them. Jet put his arm around me slowly, deliberately trying to keep me from edging away. I forced down that lump that gathered in my throat. I wasn't sure what his intention was, but I think it resembled comfort. I leaned my head against his shoulder without really thinking.

Grief was beginning to press its way into my heart. Something within me ached, and it ached because I could not be sure if I was really feeling the things that I thought I was. I was sure that I could not feel real love. I only knew affection and loyalty. I didn't know pleasure; I only knew satisfaction. That was the reploid's curse. There was no room in this war for romance.

The worst part was that the only sensation I fully understood in all measures was pain. Grief, hatred, anger, fear, and the aching that accompanies not knowing something that's crucial to your own existence were things that I felt commonly. I knew nothing of myself. Jet could have told me a story of the past several years from the time he was activated to the moment that we sat there next to each other on the grass. Jet knew his past because he had only existed for five or six years, and though the memories of things that happened around him throughout the course of the war haunted him every day of his life, at least he knew. What was worse was that he was one of the reploids that had accepted emotion as a real thing, and if he was felt he was falling in love with me, I wasn't sure I could return the feeling, because my emotions were as uncertain to me as the concept of a God. I could only hope, and wonder if maybe this was the beginning of what love was.

I didn't even notice the tears that rolled down my cheeks until I came back into conscious thought, and I felt Jet pulling me closer. Maybe this was just friendship, and I would never know love...ever. Even these tears were a response preprogrammed into my system, and I could only do it because of the fluids that were stored inside of my body for such a purpose. The thought caused such a horrible sensation within me that I broke down, and I could no longer suppress it. Reploids existed only to serve and help humans. The only way for a reploid, whose only certain sensation was pain and whose only true duty was to protect humanity before each other, to escape such an empty existence, was for that reploid to be terminated.

That thought, as it entered my mind, became even clearer as a reasonable option. They never put me up to anything but inventory and grunt work. I never felt like I made a difference at the Earth base or this new one. Maybe Jet was doing this because he felt that I couldn't take care of myself. Maybe he was doing this because he felt he had to. And where did that leave me? Back where I started, with nothing but false comfort. I withdrew slightly.

"I better get some rest. Thanks Jet," I muttered, and before I could see the surprised, disappointed look on his face, I turned and ran to my room. Tears streamed down my cheeks and ran down my face into my hair as I stumbled half-blindly toward my sanctuary. This overwhelming sense of emptiness was becoming more than I could bear, and I thought, it's too late for me. I have no reason left for living, and what purposes have I on this planet anyhow? I can't fight, all I can do is mindless work that someone else could do. Hell, a monkey could do my job. There was no room in the midst of war for weak, worthless creatures.

It was then that I made up my mind. Even if I ever got a sample of what love felt like, of what attachment felt like, I would push it away. I would reject it, because it would ultimately hurt me more than any physical pain could. From that day on, I vowed to myself that I would never feel again. I would deny my own emotions until they ceased to exist. I would hone my tolerance to pain as a weapon against weakness. Perhaps then I would be strong enough to fight. Perhaps then I would be recognized by my superiors as cognizant enough to handle myself on the battlefield. I passed by the training room, catching a glance at the boy I'd seen from earlier, and I paused, half conscious of the saline tears that were drying to my face, leaving sticky trails behind. He, I thought quietly, is my role model. I will be like him. The emotionless way he fights, how he is so cold and carefree, how he does what he pleases and no one stops him. This weakness, the weakness of human feeling, was the only thing holding me back from reaching the full potential of what I really was: a human trapped in a robot's body. I adjusted a mask of calm carelessness and my tears disappeared.

And I thought to myself: this is what I am. It's time to accept it and move on.


	2. Dissolution

-/ Blitz /-

-/ Prism /-

Everything that happened that day was a blur to me; nothing but a muddled combination of voices and sirens, rushing bodies, opening doors and flashing lights. I was frightened and a bit unsure of what to do. Hunters were being assembled for a Maverick attack against our incomplete base. They must have been planning it when they realized that another shipment of Hunters was threatening their other plans on our new planet.

I could not fight, obviously, since I had no experience to speak of. I had only gone a few rounds in the training room with my plasma saber. I suppose that I should have started training in my early months of activation, but it was my own laziness and stupidity that kept me from trying, which was something I did then and would later again regret very much.

I saw Jet rushing past me, toward the north entrance of the base. I immediately grabbed his arm and held him back.

"Jet, you're going to fight?!'

"I have to Prism, please, I have to hurry!"

"I want to come!"

"What?! Don't be stupid!" He attempted to pull his arm away but I held on tighter.

"Please?" I looked at him imploringly, but his judgment wouldn't budge.

"NO Prism, and that's final. You have no experience in the battlefield and one of us will get killed if I have to watch over you!" He snapped.

I flinched as if he'd hit me. He paused, realizing the effect his tone had on me, and sighed exasperatedly, placing his hands on my shoulders and looking at me seriously.

"Please Prism, stay here...for me. I'll come back, I promise."

"I..."

"Promise to stay here?"

"Fine...I promise." I said, sighing in frustration. "But when you come back, you owe me."

"Owe you what?"

"Think of something," I said with a smile, then let him go. I was just about to turn away when he grabbed my arm and pulled me toward him. He kissed me full on the mouth, holding me tightly for a moment as I stood, dumbstruck and unable to move. I at least had the sense to return the kiss.

"There, I paid you back."

With that, he was gone, leaving me blinking, blushing, and standing in the way. A few hunters ran into me and I finally had to side-step toward the wall and press against it while they passed. Everything was so chaotic, and I wanted to be a part of it all, but I'd made a promise. There was no way of knowing what was going to happen next. If I had known, I would not have made that promise; because I would have known then that I would have to break it.

All I knew was that hours were passing, and it seemed like an eternity. I stayed close to the entrance of the base, awaiting the return of the Hunters. After what seemed like hours, a few of the wounded made their way toward the infirmary with the aid of their comrades. It wasn't a pretty sight. Some staggered in with melted armor, torn wires and machinery showing through gaping holes from plasma weapons. Some were carrying their own amputated limbs and bore various other wounds that twisted my gut a bit. Every moment that I waited, I felt more and more anxious to see those that returned, to hear the stories of battle, and to see Jet again. At last, I heard sighs of relief pass through the building as a voice over the base intercom announced that the battle was over, and that the remainder of the invading forces had fled or been destroyed. I felt a little surge of confidence, and I kicked back to wait for Jet to return.

A half hour or so passed, and the rest of the survivors returned to the base. Anyone who hadn't been a part of the fighting greeted them with congratulations and smiles of appreciation. I smiled occasionally, and a Hunter would return the gesture, but inside I was worried. As the last of the Hunters filed in, I realized that Jet was not among them. I felt panic creeping into my nervous system.

The battlefield had not yet been cleared as safe, but I didn't care. I pushed through the incoming crowd and outside of the base, ignoring the protests of my peers, rushing by an internal instinct that not even I knew. Something drew me closer and closer toward the vast meadow that spread out between the forest and the base where the conflict had taken place. Opposite of the meadow and through the forest was the foundation of the nearby town. After what seemed like an eternity, I reached the edge of the meadow. I was fully unprepared for what I was about to witness.

I felt sick and weak, my eyes swallowing every dark sense of death that passed through the breeze, waving over lifeless metal scraps of bodies. The occasional whirr of machinery would startle me, but outside of that, there weren't any other signs of life. It was as if a wildfire had just swept through, stealing the life from each of these...creatures. Limbs, bodies, and puddles of dark fluid scattered the ground. Discarded weapons and torn wires littered the grass, and I could see among them the countless bodies of the ones they called Mavericks. I could tell Maverick from Hunter by the Maverick insignia on the breastplates and shoulder guards. The sun was close to setting, and the sky was turning orange. The rays cast eerie glares and glints off the melted and chipped armor of the fallen. I sank to my knees in the grass, overwhelmed. I had never seen so much destruction in person. Clutching a fistful of grass, I felt my eyes burn, tears gathering into them.

"S-So...this is what w-war is?"

I felt like a child robbed of my innocence. I knew that I would never be the same again. At the moment that the sun finally reached the edge of the horizon and the sky slowly began to darken, I caught a glimpse of verdant armor from the corner of my eye. I scrambled to my feet and staggered toward it, and collapsed beside a body. Black hair pooled about the back of his head, and he lay on his side, face toward the setting sun. His eyes were open, but they were dim and nearly lifeless. I shook him slightly.

"Jet?! Jet, answer me!!"

-/ Blitz /-

_The rifle was surprisingly light despite its size. _

The sound of an air siren tore across the base. A Maverick attack was imminent. Hunters scrambled to the battle line. The Mavericks were closing in on the outer edge of the base, where they had cut through the forest, completely avoiding the town, hoping to strike where it hurt. I was one of those Hunters, one of those of the many who might fall today. Unlike those others though, I had no fear of dying. I had no fear of being destroyed.

_I rotated one of the rifles around in my hand. The other rifle leaned against the wall beside me. Taking one of the tools from my storage in my armor, I pried open a circuitry panel on the item. There was no recoil reduction mechanism…_

"You must be one of the new Hunters here," he commented as we ran down towards the point of contact. I didn't pay him much mind outside of the fact that the insignia on his armor told me that he was someone of rank. I didn't think much of it anyhow. Comrades you make on the go always seem to die.

"Hey kid, don't be like that," he persisted. I continued to ignore him, more focused on the goal at hand. "The name's Jet."

_The rifle works on plasma energy cartridges with a maximum capacity of about fifty shots per clip. I slipped the clip out of the gun, lifting it up and down. It was heavy. I could likely modify it to a lighter weight to suit my needs._

"Blitz," I replied, barely audible under the guise of shifting gears and stomping feet across the grass. I still don't understand why I told him. He was probably looking at me like a 14 year old Hunter with a lot to live for. He called me 'kid' as though I haven't seen combat before. I probably have more combat experience then most people in this base. Like that girl, Prism. She didn't seem to have a lick of experience, and yet she was wearing armor like it meant something.

_I checked out the wiring on the rifle, seeing what goes where and how. I could probably have rigged up a lithium-ion rechargeable plasma generator over these cumbersome cartridges. It would be a bit heavier, though I could probably compensate with a lighter alloy. The recoil modification would make this gun a whole lot more accurate._

I didn't know how, but in midst of battle, I thought I lost Jet. Four minutes later, we bumped backs and nearly tore each other apart. I shook my head, and I realized that the split second it took for us to figure each other out was fatal. When I looked back up, a Maverick was behind him.

_I'm also going to modify the crystal matrix. Possibly add some more energy cables from the generator to the matrix so more power can be released at once. More circuits would also mean I could rapid-fire with the rifle. Of course I'd have to add heatsinks so the gun wouldn't overheat and explode._

The next thing I knew, a saber was sticking through his chest. Jet cringed in pain, then fell over onto the ground when the saber was retracted. The Maverick behind him laughed victoriously and stood over him, preparing to finish the job. Instead, he got his face smashed in by my fist. I glanced down at Jet; his eyes closed, and looked away, and then I went on killing Mavericks.

_I replaced the casing on the rifle, making a checklist of the parts I would need to complete the modifications to the gun. They wouldn't be very hard to get, especially with all the spare parts brought over on the last transport._

I didn't believe in making friends. In a war such as this, my friends always met their end. Anyone I talked to would die. I was the plague on the battlefield.

I better leave before she…before Prism dies too.

-/ Prism /-

"JET!" I cried, and I could feel tears burning my cheeks as if they were streams of fire touching my skin, leaving behind red marks where they touched me. I clutched the reploid's body close to me, sobbing as I continued trying to wake him, and after a few moments of sitting like that, I felt the touch of a hand against my back. I jolted awake immediately and realized that Jet was looking up at me. I had never loved the sight of green eyes as much as I did then.

"P-Pr...is...P-Prism," he said my name weakly.

"Jet! Jet, please, don't...!" I couldn't bear to finish the sentence. The thought was too horrible.

Jet remained silent for a moment, and I began to fear I was losing him again. He slowly reached up to my cheek and rubbed away a few tears. I had to blink fiercely to keep my eyes clear so that I could see him.

"I-I guess...I n-never got around...to telling you...h-how beautiful...you are," he said, and he was smiling. He looked like he was in terrible pain.

"Jet...you can't leave me...if you leave me now, I have...I have no one," I cried, taking hold of his hand tightly. "Jet, you're the only friend I have here."

"You have to keep being s-...s-...strong...Prism. This thing…it's…it's bigger than us."

He winced in pain, and I could tell that just the effort to remain functional was causing him a great deal of pain.

"I..."

I could not even speak, my entire system was overwhelmed with an emotion that humans call despair. My thoughts were blurred and I was finding it difficult to breathe.

"Prism...I...I've..." He winced again, his breath hissing in between his teeth, and then after a moment he continued. "I've always...loved you."

"I know, Jet…I know…but you can't leave now."

"I-I'm sorry I didn't...t-tell...you...s-s-sooner."

I wasn't sure how to respond, so I did the only logical thing I could think of. I kissed him. He hardly had the strength to return to the gesture. I could still feel a burning against my cheeks and I was barely aware of the fact that it was completely dark around us. I couldn't think, I couldn't feel, I was just...lost.

_This was what you wanted, wasn't it? Love…isn't this what you wanted? What's wrong, Prism? Why are you so sad?_

And then I felt it. I felt it more than I heard it. I heard a faint disturbance of gears whirring from within his body, and I released him. I gently ran my fingers over the wound in his chest where a saber must have gone through it. A dark fluid coated my fingertips: the equivalent to reploid blood. When I looked back to his eyes again, I watched them silently, never once letting go of his body. He watched me as well for a moment. Then he closed his eyes.

Somehow I could not let myself believe that he was gone. I eased myself down beside him and stared up at the empty sky. So full of stars, the heavens once seemed so beautiful and mysterious to me...now, it was nothing but a cold dark cloak for something heartless and unfeeling. I prayed that he would wake up again any moment, and several times I had tricked myself into believing he did. But every time, it was only an illusion.

I held his hand to my chest and lay in silence beside him. I could never have known that he had truly loved me, and even then, it would only have made it harder to lose him. But now I had no one, no reason for living at all. Jet was the only one I could call a friend that wasn't miles and miles away from this planet. I was alone, and as that knowledge set in, so did a darkness that settled over me like a disease. Something inside of me that was once full and blooming was now a withered emptiness, a void, a hole. So what was keeping me from the clutches of death now?

_Nothing_, I thought, darkly. _So what am I waiting for?_

After scanning the area around me for a few moments, my eyes came to rest upon an abandoned plasma pistol. I scrambled toward it on my hands and knees and reached out to it, never once letting go of Jet's hand. At last, after stretching myself out a bit, I reached it and dragged it toward me with a newfound energy, the energy that would accompany me to death. It almost felt like a small victory. Was this the only way out? Maybe it was the answer, but it was _an_ answer, and that was the best I could do. I knew it was cowardice, but who needed me anyway?

I put the gun to my chest. Shooting me in the head probably wouldn't have killed me. Reploids functioned off of CPU cores rather than brains, like humans did. Just one painless shot, and it'd all be over. I steadied the gun, closed my eyes, and pulled the trigger.

I felt a sharp blast of heat tear through my chest, and I heard the sizzle of melting steel as I collapsed backwards. I watched with morbid fascination as dark fluid spilled out around me, and I began to feel tired. The pain was drifting away and I could feel my entire system beginning to slow down and short out.

Was this death? It was so easy. The last thing I did was to reach out and rest my hand in Jet's, and then I sank beneath the cool waves of darkness.


	3. Awake

Being consumed in endless darkness

-/ Prism /-

I was floating somewhere in endless darkness. It was like falling into an ink sky, devoid of stars and moons; nothing but infinite, black nothingness. It was uncomfortable, for there was no reassurance of whether or not I was actually alive. For a few fleeting seconds, I could remember my eyes opening and surveying the world through the blurred film that covered my vision like a fog. I could just make out the foggy, faceless figure of a female medic carrying me into a familiar building. It was all I could comprehend of the waking world before the darkness consumed my consciousness again.

I had a dim feeling from somewhere within that I was still existing on the physical plane. I didn't want to, but letting go was not something my body seemed ready for. Unfortunately, programming doesn't allow for much by way of free will when it comes to survival. I've heard stories about humans who have spent great deals of time suffering from illnesses, and that they could simply will themselves to die and it would happen. Of course it usually happened through malnutrition as a result of refusal to eat, profuse oversleeping, and other behavior evident of the deteriorating will to survive.

During my period of unwilling slumber, I remember having a dream or a vision of sorts. In that endless expanse of Void, where I hung in limbo between life and death, something white glowed against the darkness and drifted down slowly, the way a leaf falls from a tree in the autumn season. I couldn't feel any tangible limbs connected to my body, but in my mind, I had reached out my hand and closed my fingers around something smooth, soft, and powder-white. It was a single fallen feather.

_This is not the end, _a voice said to me, but it was not something I heard. It came from all around me; from inside my heart, my head, or my psyche itself. _You're not ready for this yet._

And then my mind again spiraled away into darkness.

When I awoke and light finally broke over my sight, diluting the blackness I had spent an indeterminable amount of time suspended in, I felt a little prickling sensation I knew was pain, but it wasn't unbearable. It was hollow and distant. I was sleepy, and I was pretty sure that I was doped up on some sort of sedative. I began to examine the ceiling above me.

Somehow, I could sense someone else in the room with me. As my optic sensors kicked in a little more clearly, I forced my eyes over to my right a bit, and I could make out the distorted figure of a young reploid male. He looked familiar, but I was too incoherent to fully grasp his identity. My head hurt and I glanced down a bit, watching as the boy soldered something inside my chest. The synthetic skin had been replaced where I had burned through it, and it was grotesquely peeled back from the CPU built into my chest where my heart would have been if I were a human. He seemed too deep in concentration to notice that I had awakened. He probably would never have noticed had I not spoken.

"What are you doing?" I muttered, my voice slurred as if I was intoxicated. He jumped a bit, startled at my sudden interruption.

"What does it look like?"

Ooh, feisty.

"Wasting your time," I said briskly.

He responded with silence. I sighed, lowering my head to the side a bit, staring off into space. I suddenly remembered Jet's image, and the touch of his lips, and I felt saline tears welling up behind my eyes. Again, I quickly adjusted a mask of indifference on my face and spoke.

"I remember you now."

"Good for you," he said quietly, continuing to work.

"Blitz, right?"

He didn't answer. His attitude was working my nerves.

"Why did you do this?" He asked suddenly.

"To make you ask questions. Did it work?" I asked snidely. What? He was asking for it.

I wasn't in the mood to be friendly. In fact, I was a bit upset that he was repairing me at all, and being a jerk about it to boot. I thought about the words I might have with the medic that picked me up from the battlefield if I ever found her.

When I was back up and around, I knew I'd be in trouble. I suddenly remembered a saying from a very old movie that the humans had made several decades prior to the creation of reploids. It was a war movie that I would see the Hunters in the commons lounge watching from time to time.

_Marines aren't allowed to die without permission._

"These kinds of damages are hard to repair," he said at length, squinting as he began to twist a pair of new wires together and connect them into my CPU.

I wondered if this was his attempt at a truce, but I was willing to bet that it wasn't. I was pretty sure it was his way of being sure that I knew that I was inconveniencing him.

"So, why again are you doing it?"

He looked up at me and regarded me silently for a moment. He blinked once, and then returned his attention to continuing repairs on my system.

"I get it. This is your job. You were probably ordered to do it. Well, I'd hate to make you go against your orders, so carry on. Aren't there are other more important reploids in need of your invaluable services, though?"

Again, he was silent, though his brow furrowed and I couldn't tell if it was from concentration, frustration, or both. I decided to keep talking. A part of me felt like toeing this line was more fun than succumbing to unconsciousness again. Even in a sedated state, the sharp tongue I had with those that rubbed me wrong never failed.

"So uh, you do this often?" I asked. I couldn't help myself.

"Will you just shut up and let me work?" He said sternly without looking at me. I couldn't help but feel a little proud that I'd finally gotten to him.

"Fine," I replied, and I left him alone after that.

-/ Blitz /-

I connected the two wires together, and then looked back up at the sleeping reploid on the flat stainless steel bed. The reploid, Prism, had finally decided to let the sedative consume her for a few moments, much to my delight. It would have been hell to finish her repairs while she was awake. She just never shut up.

I looked for the next few circuits to repair in the wound. The reploid girl reminded me a bit of myself in some ways, with her abrasive attitude and obvious death wish. The only difference between her and I was that I couldn't commit suicide. I needed something to kill me. Prism, well…she just blew a hole in her chest. The medic said she'd done it herself, and she had even found the gun still in her hand. It looked like she'd tried to kill herself over the reploid whom I had met earlier; the one who had told me his name was Jet.

I might have felt a bit more sympathetic to her reasoning under other circumstances, but I didn't have much room in my schedule for sympathy. Besides, I hated when people gave me their sorry looks. I didn't know her, and I didn't feel that I owed her anything, least of all sympathy. Especially since she was such a bitch about me doing my job. It's not like I wanted to. I could have easily walked away and moved onto a more grateful patient. Instead, I was stuck fixing someone who obviously did not want my help.

Come to think of it, why had that medic woman looked so familiar? Above all else, she had wings made of fire that didn't seem to come from any sort of mechanical device. I had heard reports of magic being used here, but I had decided to disregard it completely. Now, I'm not so sure. But that was not what was freaking me out. What was freaking me out was the look in her eyes. She was yearning for something, and when she saw me and I saw her, I could see that she had found what she was looking for.

"It was me," I spoke aloud, surprising myself with my own voice.

I folded the flap of synthetic skin over the repaired computer inside of the reploid on the table, sealed it with a tube of the same silicon-based material that made up the rest of her body, and took my leave. That firebird, the medic woman...she was looking for me, but why? What significance did I hold to her? I'd never seen her before in my life that I could remember, and yet she felt so familiar to me.

_Embers of Hell, be brought forth; strike down these foul beasts..._

A sharp pain tore through my head and I gasped. I stumbled against the wall and put a hand to my forehead, attempting to steady myself as flashes of a very different scene replaced the image of the sickbay.

I caught a brief glimpse of a burning village in a rural area. In this place, the idea of reploids and like machinery was foreign. I shook my head, trying to clear the vision before it could continue. A part of me knew that I did not want to see this. Still, it continued. Human corpses lay scattered across the ground, and ashes rained all over the charred ground. Carts of burning hay and wood caught the buildings on fire. Soldiers were running through the village, setting fire to as much as possible.

To what end?

_To cleanse the village. _

Cleanse it of what? What could be so dangerous that it must be torched? So many innocent lives lost...but how did I know they were innocent?

I didn't. It was just a gut instinct.

_They didn't know, and their ignorance got them killed. _

The picture flashed by again, but this time, I saw _her_. Her, of all people; the same woman that brought Prism back from the battlefield. The one that saw me as a close…friend? No, closer...not like lovers, but something else...something kindred.

The images finally cleared, and I gasped for breath. What was it that I had seen? Was it my past?

I remembered his voice then, fatherly and deep.

_When the visions start to overwhelm you, take this. It will help._

I tapped the wrist of my armor and a small compartment opened. Inside was a syringe and a long, thin vial of a red liquid. I took the items from the compartment and jabbed the syringe into the bottle. As I withdrew the plunger, the vial filled with the red liquid. I straightened my arm and found the thin tube that served as an artificial vein in my arm. I slid the sharp tip of the syringe into my skin with a little hiss and it found the tube. I depressed the plunger and felt the liquid seeping into my arm, mingling with the red-black circulatory fluid that ran through my synthetic veins. It burned, but it helped me to calm down. When I was finished, I slid the plastic cap onto the syringe and replaced the two items in the compartment of my armor again.

I didn't even know what the stuff was, but I trusted him, and if it helped, that was all that mattered.

Where the images came from, I had no clue, nor did I wish to know. I just wanted peace from them. I wanted peace from this half-life. A part of me wanted release, wanted to die...dying is good for me, I thought, it's healthy for me to die, because I'm not helping anyone for being alive. I'm just getting others hurt because of me. Something engrained into my DNA told me that the faster I got away, the better.

I glanced back at the closed door behind me and thought of the unconscious reploid I had just fixed. What made us so different from each other? We both wanted to die, though it was for very different reasons. It wasn't our differences that mattered most to me, I realized. What made us the same was more important to me at that moment.

Reploids weren't programmed with suicidal urges. If it was necessary to sacrifice one's self for the benefit of a cause, it could be done. It had been done, on several occasions. Otherwise, reploids were programmed to sustain their own lives for as long as they potentially could to remain useful and effective. These days, when thoughtless robots were a dime a dozen, reploids were a rare breed. They were better friends to humanity because they could _think _and _feel_, and Robots could only respond to programming. Reploids weren't just robots to the humans, they were friends and guardians. They had given us the maximum capability of emotions and sensations because it made the humans feel like their protectors were closer in design to themselves, but without some of their most fatal physical weaknesses. Better still, reploids would respond to programming and orders better than humans would, and it made them easier to control.

Was that what made it possible for her and I to have these thoughts? Was it just the angst of being so young and being caught up in war, knowing so little about oneself? I suddenly knew then what it was that had made us so similar.

At some point or another, the two of us had both been human. We had both faced death, and we had embraced it, wanted it; we had welcomed it. Perhaps it was really that we could not remember our pasts before the operation. Perhaps there never was an operation, and it was something to do with this planet…some complex theory akin to reincarnation.

I thought about the operation that made humans into reploids. These days, the worlds we knew were full of death. Anything that saved a human life could and would be done, even if it meant destroying what made them human and debasing them with mechanical parts, reinforced false skeletal structures and tube-veins, silicon skin, lithium-ion batteries, and computers…this was the price that we as humans paid to live lives we did not want. We had only wanted to die like humans were supposed to when their life force expired, but we couldn't. Science, at its prime, had replaced God in the decision of life or death. Someone, somewhere, had not wanted us to die, and instead they had entrapped us into a lifetime in a cold mechanical shell.

If suicide was a sin and there truly was such a place as Hell, we would have nothing to fear. We were already living in it.


End file.
